Note 89 — Chapter XXIX · SOPHISTES — POLITIKUS.
Reading edition
Plato, Apolog. p. 37 E. ἐάν τε γὰρ λέγω, ὅτι τῷ θεῷ ἀπειθεῖν τοῦτ’ ἔστιν, καὶ διὰ τοῦτ’ ἀδύνατον ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν, οὐ πείσεσθέ μοι ὡς εἰρωνευομένῳ.
Xen. Memor. iv. 4, 9. ἀρκεῖ γὰρ (says Hippias to Sokrates), ὅτι τῶν ἄλλων καταγελᾷς, ἐρωτῶν καὶ ἐλέγχων πάντας, αὐτὸς δὲ οὐδενὶ θέλων ὑπέχειν λόγον, οὐδὲ γνώμην ἀποφαίνεσθαι περὶ οὐδενός. See also Memorab. iii. 5, 24.
Compare a striking passage in Plato’s Menon, p. 80 A; also Theætêt. p. 149; and Plutarch, Quæst. Platonic. p. 1000.
The attribute εἰρωνεία, which Plato here declares as one of the main characteristics of the Sophists, is applied to Sokrates in a very special manner, not merely in the Platonic dialogues, but also by Timon in the fragments of his Silli remaining — Αὐτὴ ἐκείνη ἡ εἰωθυῖα εἰρωνεία Σωκράτους (Plato, Repub. i. p. 337 A); and again — προὔλεγον ὅτι σὺ ἀποκρίνασθαι μὲν οὐκ ἐθελησοις, εἰρωνεύσοιο δὲ καὶ πάντα μᾶλλον ποιήσοις ἢ ἀποκρίνοιο, εἴ τις τί σε ἐρωτᾷ. So also in the Symposion, p. 216 E, Alkibiades says about Sokrates εἰρωνευόμενος δὲ καὶ παίζων πάντα τὸν βίον πρὸς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους διατελεῖ. And Gorgias, p. 489 E. In another part of the Gorgias (p. 481 B), Kallikles says, “Tell me, Chærephon, does Sokrates mean seriously what he says, or is he bantering?” σπουδάζει ταῦτα Σωκράτης ἢ παίζει; Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias, &c., do not seem to have been εἴρωνες at all, as far as our scanty knowledge goes.
The words εἴρων, εἰρωνικός, εἰρωνεία seem to include more than is implied in our words irony, ironical. Schleiermacher translates the words ἁπλοῦν μιμήτην, εἰρωνικὸν μιμήτην, at the end of the Sophistês, by “den ehrlichen, den Schlauen, Nachahmer”; which seems to me near the truth, — meaning one who either speaks what he does not think, or evades speaking what he does think, in order to serve some special purpose.